by Alexa Land
Finn came around from the back of the house and said, “I shut off the water and power at the main breaker and made sure the fire was out in the trash barrel. The back door and all the windows are locked, is everything secure in the front?”
“Yeah. I think we’re set.”
The four of us climbed into the SUV with Finn behind the wheel and the boys huddled against each other in the backseat. As we pulled away, Colt pivoted around and watched the house through the cloud of dust we kicked up. When he turned back around, he swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Fear and uncertainty showed in his eyes for a moment, but when Elijah looked at him, he smiled and put his arm around his boyfriend’s shoulders.
*****
Despite all the stress we’d been under, or maybe because of it, we decided to proceed with our plan of visiting Yellowstone before we left Wyoming. It took about seven hours to get there, and it was totally out of the way, but I didn’t mind. I wasn’t in a hurry to return to the rest of my life.
The drive gave me a lot of time to think, not that I wound up with any answers. I had no clue how I was going to support myself and two teenagers, or how we were all going to live in my tiny studio apartment. I really didn’t know what to do about my line of work, either. It didn’t exactly make me a good role model, and it was going to get in the way of whatever was happening between Finn and me, I knew that for a fact. But I was going to be desperate for cash very soon, and I didn’t know any other way to make that kind of money.
I had to stop thinking about it after a while because I was getting so discouraged, and stared out at the open road to distract myself. Having Finn beside me was a comfort. He wove his fingers with mine as he drove, and I leaned over and rested my head on his shoulder. I’d been worried about giving the boys stability and a sense of security, and I realized that Finn just radiated those things.
He said he’d help me, but why would he want to take on that kind of responsibility? He was going to have enough to deal with when we got home. He was currently unemployed and living at home with his bigoted parents, and if he came out to them, which seemed to be the plan, he’d also be looking for a new place to live. Finn had enough on his plate. I’d have to do what I always did and figure out a way to get by on my own.
*****
I was surprised when we pulled up to the Old Faithful Inn a little before sunset. Finn parked the car and its makeshift trailer in a space made for an RV, and got out and stretched. I got out too and looked at the beautiful, sprawling lodge with its steeply pitched roof. It looked like something out of a movie. I asked, “We’re not staying here, are we?”
“We are. I got lucky, they’d had a last minute cancellation when I called last night. Normally they’d be all booked up this time of year.”
“But wasn’t it expensive?”
“It’s not so bad. We have a standard unit in the old part of the lodge, nothing fancy. I figured, since we’re just going to spend one day here, why not stay right in the park and really soak it in?” Finn looked happy, and that made me smile.
We all grabbed our backpacks before the boys and I followed Finn into the breathtaking lobby. It was a rustic composition of dark wood and high ceilings, with four tiers of balconies opening around a huge common area dominated by an absolutely enormous rock fireplace.
“Holy shit,” Elijah whispered. His eyes were huge as he looked around, and he held on to Colt’s arm with both hands.
“This is amazing,” my brother said. He turned to Finn and asked, “Are you rich?”
Finn shook his head, a look of amazement on his face as he took in our surroundings. “Not by a long shot,” he said, his eyes traveling up the absolutely gigantic fireplace.
After Finn checked in, we dropped our backpacks in our room and headed out to explore. I took my phone out and snapped a few candids of the boys. Elijah was really shy and never let go of Colt, practically hiding behind him as we negotiated the clusters of people outside. They seemed even more childlike in this setting as they reacted to everything with wonder. “Let me get a picture of the three of you,” I told my companions, framing up a shot with the lodge in the background.
“Why don’t you get in the picture, too?” A voice beside me said.
I turned to look at the older woman with short silver hair and an engaging smile, and said, “Yeah, okay,” before handing over my phone.
I stood between Colt and Finn with Elijah on Colt’s opposite side, and we all smiled for the camera. The woman took several shots, and when she gave the phone back, she told me, “You have a beautiful family.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. When she’d gone, I scrolled through the pictures she’d taken. We really did look like a family. A non-traditional one, sure, but no less a family. I stared at the screen for a long moment and smiled before turning to Finn. He took my hand, which surprised me a little since we were in public, but he just grinned at me.
“What’s going on over there?” Colt asked, indicating a crowd that was gathering a short distance away.
“Let’s go see,” I said, and we all went over and joined the crowd. I knew what we were looking at, but the boys didn’t so I decided to let them be surprised.
“It’s about to happen,” someone nearby exclaimed as we found a spot at the edge of the wide walkway.
“Wait for it,” I murmured, and winked at Colt when he glanced at me. He turned back around just in time to watch Old Faithful erupt, shooting steam and water a hundred and forty feet into the air.
“Oh my God!” my brother exclaimed as the crowd cheered. Elijah clapped and let out a burst of surprised laughter before grabbing Colt’s hand.
Finn looked no less enchanted. He had a huge, delighted smile on his face, his eyes bright and sparkling. I took a few pictures so I could always remember him in that moment of perfect happiness. I snapped a few of the geyser, too, but Finn was more captivating.
The eruption lasted about two minutes, and when it was over, the crowd applauded before beginning to disperse. “I can’t believe I just saw Old Faithful!” Colt exclaimed. “I heard about it and saw pictures, like, a billion times, but seeing it for real was epic!” He turned to Finn and said, “Thanks for bringing us here.”
“You’re welcome. Come on, let’s explore a bit before it gets dark,” Finn said.
A few people stared at us as we strolled on the walkways through the steaming, bubbling geyser field, since Finn and I were once again holding hands. Fuck ‘em. Whenever someone tried to give us a disapproving look, I stared them down, and Finn ignored them. The boys followed our example and held hands, too, and Colt did the same thing I was doing, glaring at anyone that dared look at him judgmentally. He caught me grinning at him at one point, and said, “Finn’s really big. If anyone hassles us, he can punch ’em in the face.”
Finn chuckled at that. “I could, but I’m not going to.”
When it started to get dark, we went to dinner in the lodge’s big dining room, which was decorated in the same woodsy style as the rest of the place. I probably looked a little shell-shocked when I saw the prices on the menu, and Finn must have noticed because he said, “Dinner’s on me. Order anything you want. That goes for all of you.” Colt and Elijah thanked him excitedly, while I mentally added the boys’ and my meals to the ever-increasing running total of all I owed Finn.
I just ordered a bowl of soup, but the boys went nuts and ordered a ton of food. After their diet of fast food and ramen I could see why they’d be excited, and I didn’t try to discourage them. They were both so skinny, and it was their first real meal in ages.
Somehow, they both polished off dessert after their huge dinners, and then my brother moaned and said, “Oh man, I’m so full that I could pop like a tick! Is it okay if we go lay down in the room?”
“Sure,” I said, and handed Colt my key.
Elijah pushed back from the table. He’d said next to nothing throughout the meal, but now he glanced at Finn from under his lashes and sa
id quietly, “Thank you, sir. That was the best meal I ever ate.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Colt seconded. “That was delicious.”
“You don’t have to call me sir. I’m just Finn. And you’re welcome.” Once the boys took off, he said, “They’re good kids. Polite.”
“Except for the part where my brother said he was going to pop like a tick at the dinner table,” I said with a grin.
Finn grinned too. “That’s typical.” He watched them as they exited the dining room and said, “I feel like I’m being an irresponsible adult for letting them go to the room by themselves, like maybe I should chaperone them or something.”
“I know what you mean, but they already lived together for months, totally unsupervised, and already did whatever they’re going to do.” I took a sip of water, then said, “Colt told me they’ve messed around but haven’t had sex.”
“And you believed that?”
“Yeah, because he also told me Elijah was sexually molested when he was younger, so now he has some hard limits.”
“Poor kid. It seems really unfair that they’ve both had so much to deal with in their young lives.”
The waiter came by, and Finn ordered some coffee and dessert. To me he said, “I wasn’t going to do it, but that cake the boys polished off looked good.”
“Well, you might as well enjoy your pseudo-vacation.”
“I’m glad we took this detour. I think we all needed it, especially the boys.”
The waiter came back with the coffee and a slice of chocolate cake with two forks, and Finn insisted on sharing it with me. We savored it slowly.
After a while Finn said, “I’m kind of surprised Colt told you about Elijah. He’s so protective of him, and that was some pretty private information.”
“He told me because he suspected something similar had happened to me before I ran away, and was trying to get me to open up to him. He, um…he wasn’t wrong,” I admitted quietly.
Finn reached across the table and took my hand, and I stared at the white table cloth. “Chance, I’m so sorry,” he said softly.
“I’ve never talked about this. Colt wanted me to, but I just couldn’t. I want him to know why I left, but how do I tell my kid brother about something like this? I was sexually abused for over a year, and when I finally told my mom, she didn’t believe me. No one did. The man that did those things to me was her boss, a leader in the community, and I was just this punk kid. I got in trouble all the time. I lied, cut school, acted out. So, when I tried to tell the truth, everyone believed him and not me. Even my own mother.” I stopped talking and swallowed hard.
“Oh God,” Finn whispered, squeezing my hand.
“He ended up firing her shortly after I tried to tell everyone what he did to me. She was his assistant at the biggest employer in town, the natural gas company. He told people he’d caught her stealing, so she couldn’t find another job after that. And here’s the really pathetic thing: she knew he’d fired her on false pretenses, but she still took his word over mine about the molestation. She told me he must have fired her for the lies I told. Somehow, instead of making her see that he was a liar and a terrible person, it all just came back to me instead.” I kept staring at the spot on the tablecloth where my thumbnail was wearing a little groove in the fabric.
“What kind of parent would take a child molester’s word over that of their own son?” Finn’s voice was choked with anger.
“The whole town believed him. Once I finally decided not to keep the secret anymore, I raised a huge stink about it. I wanted everyone to know, so no other kids would get hurt by him. I even tried to go to the police, but he was a pillar of the community, and like I said, I was just this little delinquent. I wondered in later years if that was why he picked me, because he knew no one would believe me if I decided to speak up. All these people came forward, boys he’d coached in Little League and kids he’d mentored as a youth minister, his grown sons and their friends, and they all vouched for him. They swore he’d never laid a finger on them. I had no evidence, it was my word against his. I became a pariah, the little shit who tried to tarnish the name of the town’s most prominent citizen with my lies. The whole town turned on me. I was only fourteen years old. I had to get out of there. That’s why I ran away.” I let go of Finn’s hand and quickly wiped the tear off my cheek before anyone saw, though the only other patrons in the restaurant were clear across the huge room.
“I want to kill him.” Finn’s voice was low and oozing venom.
“Cancer beat you to it. Henry Aimsley died three years after I left town. He took the truth to the grave with him.”
Finn banged his fist on the table, making the silverware rattle. The few people in the dining room glanced our way. His eyes were bright with unshed tears, a muscle in his jaw working as he ground his teeth together. He pushed his chair back abruptly and pulled me to my feet, then crushed me in an embrace. “I can’t stand it,” he whispered. “I can’t stand that this was done to you, and that he got away with it. I can’t stand the fact that he wasn’t punished to the full extent of the law, and that all the assholes in your town couldn’t pull their fucking heads out long enough to see the truth. It’s a good thing he’s dead, because if he wasn’t, I’d go to jail for killing him.”
I rubbed his back and whispered, “Come on, baby, let’s go outside.” He nodded and let go of me, then flipped open the leather folder that held the bill and tossed a pile of twenties on it, including a very generous tip.
We went out the back of the lodge, to the patio overlooking the geyser field. Only a little steam was visible in the moonlight. Finn pushed his hair back from his face and took several deep breaths to calm down. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I shouldn’t have told you here. I didn’t want to spoil your vacation.”
He turned to me and cupped my face with both hands, resting his forehead against mine, and said softly, “Please don’t apologize.”
I chewed my lower lip, not looking at him, then said softly, “My timing sucked, though. I wanted to tell you, but that wasn’t the right time.”
“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”
“I trust you with my life, Finn. It’s so hard for me to trust people, and now you know why. But I’ve always known I could trust you. I’ve been absolutely sure of it.”
He drew a deep breath, then took my hand and started walking. It was late, so we almost had the place to ourselves. Eventually he asked, “You said you kept the secret for almost a year back then. What made you finally come forward?”
“My brother. When he was about five, I took him to Mom’s workplace on her birthday because he wanted to bring her some flowers. Aimsley came out of his office while we were there. He basically ignored me, probably because it was uncomfortable to have his dirty little secret in his place of business. But he was paying a lot of attention to Colt, acting really charming and joking around with him. Then he put his hand on Colt’s shoulder, and I snapped. I was so afraid he’d try to do the same thing to my little brother, and I created a huge scene. Some big guy that worked maintenance ended up carrying me out of the building. That was the day it all started. I tried to tell anyone who would listen, and, well, you know how that turned out.”
“Do you think he hurt your brother, too?”
I said, “God I hope not. Before I left, I sat Colt down and explained that Aimsley was a monster, and that he needed to be sure he was never alone with him. I didn’t handle it right, the poor kid probably thought the man was a werewolf or something. But I was a kid, too, I did the best I could. Even though he was little, I think Colt understood.”
We were quiet for a while as we wandered along the walkway and out into the geyser field. Finally I said, “I want to explain all of this to my brother, so he understands why I left. He begged me not to go, it broke my heart. He was just this tiny little kid, all skin and bones and big, blue eyes. I wanted to take him with me, but of course I couldn’t do that.” After another pause I told
Finn, “When I saw Colt again on the first leg of this trip, I realized how much Aimsley took from me. He didn’t just take my innocence and my childhood. He took my family.”
“I can’t even imagine how furious you must be.”
“I’m sad more than anything, especially now because my mother and I were never able to move past it. I always held out hope that someday, somehow, I’d finally get her to believe me. But now she’s dead, so that’s never going to happen. I waited too long to try to talk to her.”
“Chance, I’m so incredibly sorry.”
I rubbed my cheek against his shoulder, then looked out over the open terrain for a while before saying, “Can we go back to our room?”
“Absolutely. You getting tired?”
“No, I want to talk to Colt. I can’t keep putting off telling him why I left. He’s already figured out a lot of it, and I kind of feel like I’m on a roll now. I told one person, so hey, why not tell two more?”
Finn nodded. “If you want to, then sure.”
“I do, because I just realized something. I put off talking to my mom way too long, and I don’t want to do the same with Colt. I want him to understand what happened. I feel like I’ve always owed him an explanation.”
When we went back to the room, we found the boys lying on top of the covers on one of the queen beds. They had a big park map unfolded above them, each holding one side. Colt peeked around the edge of the map and said, “Do we have time to do some stuff here tomorrow, before we head back?”
“Sure,” Finn said. “What do you want to do?”
My brother sat up and swung the map around to show us. “There are buffalo here. Look at the picture! Can we see a buffalo?”
“We can try,” I said. I sat down on the other bed facing my brother, and Finn sat beside me as I said, “Can I talk to you a minute?”
Colt’s face fell. “Shit. What did I do?”
“It’s nothing like that. You’d asked me some questions when I first came to see you, and I didn’t answer. I, um, I want you to know why I left Wyoming when I was fourteen.”